May College Park Principal's Message

May 01, 2017 12:24PM
● By Joe Alvarez

College Park Principal, Joe Alvarez

Dear Falcon
Families,

Let me start
off by saying how much I am looking forward to spring and baseball season, and,
more specifically, Oakland Athletics baseball! Being born in Oakland, I am a
fond follower of all Oakland sports.

Another fun
sport I like is basketball. College Park’s fantastic math teacher, Chris Gray spearheaded a “statsketball”
team that included seniors Jordan Levy, James Andrews, and Connor Heuerman. Together they won the American Statistical
Association's inaugural Statsketball Tournament by developing a
mathematical model to select teams in the NCAA Basketball Tournament to
maximize their points under the contest's scoring rules while staying under a
given budget. This is a pretty impressive accomplishment. More information can
be found about this contest and their work by reading the Wall Street Journal
article at www.wsj.com.

I am genuinely
grateful to and proud of all our CPHS students for their commitment and efforts
in making our school and community better places each and every day. Last
month, I mentioned that two of our students, Thomas McDowell and Maxwell Morehead, had advanced as finalists
in the National Merit Scholarship Program, which recognizes and honors academically
talented students across the country. I am very pleased to let you know both
students were selected to receive a Merit Scholarship of $2500. Please join me in congratulating these outstanding
scholars.

We have
successfully completed our WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) accreditation
committee visit. During their three-day stay, the committee visited our
classrooms and talked with community members and district and CPHS staff. What
became abundantly clear to the committee is that we have a FANTASTIC
school. The committee left many
commendations and a few recommendations for follow-up. Over the next six weeks, we will work
together on an action plan that will involve community feedback to address the
recommendations and help tailor our professional development around follow-up
activities. Our focus will be on continuing to make CPHS the best 21st
century school it can be.

To leave you
with a few fun notes, the staff nearly beat the students (61-62) in our annual
staff vs. student basketball game, where the students’ valiant efforts narrowly
pulled out the victory. We had a very
successful junior prom, where students were well entertained and truly showed
the Falcon spirit. Thank you to leadership teacher Mrs. Thomas and our creative
and spirited leadership class for coordinating a great event.

And speaking of creative… there
are lots of creative and fun ways to keep informed on College Park campus
activities and initiatives. Please check us out on Twitter.com/cphsfalcons,
Facebook (College Park High School), our emailed newsletter, Falcon Flyer
(created by our fabulous PTSA), College Park TV (CPTV) and the Student Bulletin
found at cphs.mdusd.org.